Minister of Environment and Forest Jairam Ramesh speaks to an NGO official dressed in a brinjal costume. At the public hearing on Bt brinjal in Ahmedabad on Tuesday. Javed Raja Minister for Environment and Forest Jairam Ramesh has reiterated claims by Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, chairman of the UN body — Inter-government Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — that Himalayan glaciers will disappear by 2035, as “alarmist”.
He told mediapersons after a public hearing on Bt brinjal on Tuesday, that the melting of glaciers is a serious issue. “There is scientific evidence in what Pachauri’s organisation has claimed about disappearance of Himalayan glaciers”, but warnings issued by IPCC “are not based on any scientific evidence”, he said.
He, however, admitted that all glaciers are melting.
“We know that the conditions of the glaciers are very vulnerable and most of them are melting, but it is completely wrong to say that all of them will melt and disappear by 2035 due to climate change,” said Ramesh, adding that there is no scientific basis to the IPCC warnings.
“The warnings are aimed at creating panic,” he said.
Ramesh had first commented on the issue in New Delhi on Monday after a United Nations agency report admitted faults in the IPCC claims.
The government of India, Ramesh said, had earlier issued a report prepared by scientist V K Raina, which had stated that the Himalayan glaciers were not vanishing.
But Raina's report was dismissed by Pachauri on grounds that it did not adhere to scientific methods.
But the recent UN report upheld Raina’s findings.
